"Let clerks indite in Latin," says the author of the "Testament of Love," "and let Frenchmen in their French also indite their quaint terms, for it is kindly to their mouths; and let us show our fantasies in such wordes as we learned of our mother's tongue." But the new national life afforded nobler materials than "fantasies" now for English literature.

With the completion of the work of national unity had come the completion of the work of national freedom.

The vigour of English life showed itself in the wide extension of commerce, in the progress of the towns, and the upgrowth of a free yeomanry.

It gave even nobler signs of its activity in the spirit of national independence and moral earnestness which awoke at the call of Wyclif.

New forces of thought and feeling which were destined to tell on every age of our later history broke their way through the crust of feudalism in the socialist revolt of the Lollards, and a sudden burst of military glory threw its glamour over the age of Crecy and Poitiers.